Bumi still short-lists bidders for its coal mine unit

Energy resources firm PT Bumi Resources Tbk said it has short-listed seven potential buyers for a 30 percent stake in two coal-mining units. India's Tata Power Co. and Reliance Energy Ltd. confirmed they had bid, The Jakarta Post reported Saturday.

The would-be investors had submitted binding offers for 30 percent of PT Kaltim Prima Coal and PT Arutmin Indonesia by a Feb. 28 deadline, Dileep Srivastava, senior vice president for investor relations, said in an e-mail, without naming them, the Post quoting Bloomberg as saying.

Bumi hired Credit Suisse Group, Switzerland's second-largest bank, to find a buyer for the units. Credit Suisse "is tabulating the bids," Srivastava said. "It's premature to talk of the winning bidder."

The e-mail came in response to a report today in Indonesia's newspaper Investor Daily saying that Tata Power, India's second-biggest utility by sales, had won the bidding. The report cited an unidentified person.

"We have not heard anything from Bumi Resources officially," Tata's spokeswoman Shalini Singh said in a telephone interview from Mumbai today. "We believe it will take a few more weeks before a final picture emerges." (*)